A Long, Dangerous Coastline: Shipwreck Tales from Alaska to California

By Anthony Dalton

On September 8, 1923, seven US Navy destroyers rammed into jagged rocks on the California coast. Twenty-three sailors died that night. Five years earlier, the Canadian Pacific passenger ship Princess Sophia steamed into Vanderbilt Reef in Alaska’s Lynn Canal. When she sank, she took 353 people to their deaths. From San Francisco’s fog-bound Golden Gate to the stormy Inside Passage of British Columbia and Alaska, the magnificent west coast of North America has taken a deadly toll. Here are the dramatic tales of ships that met their ends on this treacherous coastline—including Princess Sophia, Benevolence, Queen of the North and others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heritage House
• Release date: Feb 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781926936116

Anthony Dalton

Anthony Dalton is an adventurer and an author. He has written five non-fiction books and collaborated on two others. Recently, he published River Rough, River Smooth and Adventures with Camera and Pen. His illustrated non-fiction articles have been printed in magazines and newspapers in 20 countries and nine languages. He lives in Delta, British Columbia.

Book preview

Prologue

The north wind shrieked across the decks from one end to the other and buffeted the stricken ship. She still had engine power, and black smoke poured from her funnel to show there was life in her yet. The wind, however, whipped the smoke away horizontally to the south before it could climb into the sky and dissipate naturally. The storm was building in intensity. The sea was rough; white caps topped waves that were getting bigger and bolder with the passing minutes. The ship creaked and groaned, uncomfortable where she sat stranded but upright on a broad, flat ledge of rock.

The Canadian Pacific steamship Princess Sophia had been aground on Vanderbilt Reef in the Lynn Canal for over 14 hours. Many of her passengers braved the dreadful late-afternoon fall weather to watch a few smaller rescue vessels milling about not far away. The sea was too rough to launch the Princess’ lifeboats to take the passengers and crew clear of the reef, but the rescue boats waited anyway, giving those aboard the stranded ship assurance that they would get off safely.

On the bridge, Captain Locke and other officers smoked their cigarettes and pipes. They listened to the screaming wind and watched the driving snow and the building seas. They displayed an aura of confidence to the passengers, but that was just a bold nautical front. Deep inside, each man had his own doubts, his own demons. Each officer was wondering how this shipwreck would play out.

Despite the increasing waves and the gale howling around his ship, Captain Locke expressed his satisfaction that the Princess and all aboard her were in no immediate danger. But he was concerned for the safety of the rescue ships. Taking a megaphone, he stepped out into the open and bellowed across the water to one of them, We are perfectly safe; you better go into harbour until morning.

They left but were soon replaced by larger ships, which circled the reef for a couple of hours. There was nothing more they could do until the storm and the waves died down. Eventually, they too retreated out of the wind to safe anchorages not far away. At 8:00 p.m., a steam pipe fractured and all the lights went out on the Princess. A few lanterns soon showed, but without the bright lights from saloons and cabins, the ship suddenly appeared more fragile.

Snow and sleet and winds gusting to 100 miles per hour ravaged the ship. Another 24 hours of uncertainty passed for passengers and crew. There was still no possibility of taking anyone off. The storm increased in ferocity, and the driving snow created whiteout conditions.

In the late afternoon of the second day on the reef, as the gale-force north wind continued to pound against the aft quarter of the Princess, slowly her stern and propeller lifted off the rock, and she began to move.

Introduction

The sea is incapable of showing emotion, yet it can be angry. It is incapable of showing respect for ships or for the men who sail in them, but it demands respect anyway. The ever-moving sea is a law and an entity unto itself. It washes and erodes rocks and cliffs with restless persistence. In concert with the wind, it changes coastlines at will. The fragile ships and the men that sail in them on her waters are insignificant intruders in an alien and often dangerous domain.

Ships have been sailing the west coast of the North American continent since at least the 16th century, when Spanish explorers probed north of the equator. They were followed by a steady stream of British ships. These voyagers were all there in the spirit of exploration, seeking to discover and claim new lands for their monarchs and to trade with locals wherever they might be found.

By the late 18th century, trading forts had been established from the Columbia River to Vancouver Island and the mainland of what is now British Columbia. Although separated from the rest of the nation by a wild and often lawless land, California had been annexed into the United States. The sea lanes along the coasts of California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and parts of Alaska began to be travelled by more and more ships.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, accidents became more frequent as marine traffic increased dramatically. Where once ships occasionally were lost off the coast during storms, shipwrecks began to happen more often on the foggy shores. In addition, collisions at sea between ships travelling in opposite directions added to the losses of ships, passengers and crews.

The 14 short stories in this book are about shipwrecks along the west coast of North America between California and Alaska. Studying the events that led to the accidents shows that, in most cases, human error cost the lives of the people lost in the disasters. Human error wrecked many of the ships, and human error was responsible for the loss of the cargoes on board. Sadly, human error continues to be a major cause of accidents at sea. The advancement of technology, it seems, is no guarantee of safety.

CHAPTER

1

On Anacapa’s Foggy Shores

The New York–based shipbuilding company of Westervelt & MacKay proudly launched their latest creation in late October 1850. As the wooden-hulled sidewheel steamer slid down the ways for the first time, her entry into the east-coast waters was heralded with cheers of appreciation.

Winfield Scott was an elegant ship for her time. She sported a sharply pointed bow with an elongated bowsprit. In addition, she carried three masts: one forward of her funnel and two abaft. Her sail plan included three foresails, or jibs, square-rigged canvas on the foremast with a gaff abaft, and gaff-rigged sails on the main and mizzen-masts. With all sails set and the steam engine working hard, she was fast and she was strong. Surprisingly for a sidewheel steamer, she appears to have been quite stable and seaworthy on heavy ocean swells, unlike many of her counterparts.

Winfield Scott was registered at 1,292 tons. Like most sidewheel steamers, she was long and lean, apart from the bulky paddlewheels on each side. She was 225 feet in length and had a beam of 34.7 feet. Despite her relatively slim hull, she held accommodations for 165 people in cabins, with room for a further 150 passengers in steerage class.

For the first two years of her service, Winfield Scott (named after the famed US Army general who served his country on active duty for over 50 years—longer than any other American) carried passengers between New York City and New Orleans for Davis, Brooks & Company. In 1852, she was sold to the New York & San Francisco Steamship Company for service on the west coast. Following a six-month voyage around the southern tip of South America, she arrived in San Francisco on April 18, 1852. Her new route was to be San Francisco to Panama and return, first for the Independent Line until the end of 1852, then for the New York & San Francisco Steamship Company from February to April 1853. In July 1853, she was purchased by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.

In the middle of the 19th century and the following decades leading up to the completion of the Panama Canal, people migrating to the newly annexed state of California from the eastern seaboard had the choice of three routes. The first and most direct route was a difficult, expensive and often dangerous overland journey that took settlers through large tracts of hostile territory. The second was the long haul by sea down the Atlantic through the notoriously turbulent Drake Passage or Straits of Magellan at the southern tip of the Americas and up the west coast of South and Central America to Los Angeles or San Francisco. The third and final route was by